The Lost Fleet: Courageous

STORY (military sci-fi) - Courageous is Book #3 in The Lost Fleet series. Capt. Geary, who escaped death and survived in an escape pod for 100 years, now finds himself caught in a perilous future where he must command an Alliance fleet in multiple deadly battles with the Syndics (another race of humans). This book continues the same threads as the first two books. Some of his crew worships him while others are nearly mutinous. His fleet is badly damaged, low on weapons and fuel, and cannot find a safe path back to the safety of Alliance space. The Syndics pop up everywhere and sometimes seem to know Geary's next move and be a step ahead of him. But how? There seems to be another alien entity "manipulating" things. Who or what are they? How do they get their information? Are they helping the Syndics or trying to send Geary a message? Very intriguing!

Anyway, I love everything about this book. The battles are ship-to-ship, not man-to-man, so there's no blood and guts. I love hearing Geary and his fleet captains discuss tactics and strategies for the next engagement with the Syndics. Even the battles themselves are interesting. The author has a Naval background, so the formations and movements of the fleet are described in detail and easy to visualize -- not to mention interesting and creative. Also, Geary becomes a bit more human in this book. He's still the renowned hero nicknamed Blackjack Geary, but he and Ambassador Rionne are having a romantic affair and their relationship becomes even more complicated.

PERFORMANCE - Christian Rummel does a great job. He does multiple accents and his voice is low and sexy, yet he still manages to do pretty good female voices. I must admit, however, his performance probably would have just received four stars if it weren't for the fact that I love his voice!!!!

OVERALL - This book is pretty "clean." There's no profanity and only minor references to sleeping together, having an affair, etc., with no actual sex scenes. I highly recommend this to adult sci-fi lovers, both male and female. It's mysterious, tense and the characters are very human. You should listen to the series in order, but each book can "stand alone." Due to the fact that the fleet is in the middle of a six-book journey back to Alliance space, the ending of this book is actually Geary preparing to face the Syndics yet again!

I feel like this third book in the series basically repeated the first and second books so much that the author was treating me like a dumb ass. He'd rehash the same concepts over and over.